A moment of silence, please, for our fallen Canadian brother: hitchBOT the hitch hiking robot was vandalized in Philadelphia, and is now broken to itty bitty pieces after a mere two weeks in the US. If you haven't heard of hitchBOT yet, he is about to become famous for making you lose your faith in humanity. The little bot was created in Toronto's Ryerson University for a very simple purpose: to travel the world, and to test the kindness of humanity. HitchBOT doesn't move on its own, and is entirely dependent on the kindness of strangers to complete his adorable missions, which so far have involved a cross-country trip across Canada and several road trips in Europe. Alas, a picture of HitchBOT shredded to tiny robot pieces was sent to his creators over the weekend from an alley in Philadelphia, where his last drivers left him to be picked up for another adventure. Consider the test in our humanity failed.
Although hitchBOT has left us too soon, he did lead a remarkable robot life. He has made friends all over the globe, attended baseball games, and even made the nightly news. Known for his derpy little electric smile, his popular Twitter account had users all over the country tweeting in the hopes that HitchBOT's journey would bring him to their hometowns.
HitchBOT's creators left a note explaining the unfortunate circumstances on their website.
A message from the family:
hitchBOT’s trip came to an end last night in Philadelphia after having spent a little over two weeks hitchhiking and visiting sites in Boston, Salem, Gloucester, Marblehead, and New York City. Unfortunately, hitchBOT was vandalized overnight in Philadelphia; sometimes bad things happen to good robots. We know that many of hitchBOT’s fans will be disappointed, but we want them to be assured that this great experiment is not over. For now we will focus on the question “what can be learned from this?” and explore future adventures for robots and humans.
We have no interest in pressing charges or finding the people who vandalized hitchBOT; we wish to remember the good times, and we encourage hitchBOT’s friends and fans to do the same.
They have also posted tweets to his page assuring us that although HitchBOT is no longer with us physically, he will always live on in our hearts:
HitchBOT was created to test the kindness of humanity, but in a sad, unfortunate twist of events, he now tests much more than that. Can we all rise up and become the humans that hitchBOT deserves? The creators will announce plans for his next journey come August 5, so hopefully this time around we will watch his little bleep blooping self's back. (Is anyone else low key crying about The Brave Little Toaster right now? Just me? It's casual. I'm not OK.)
